The Shoemaker's Son
by Carcaohtar
Summary: What if Milla decided to go into Sasha's mind to find out why he's so closed up? But what if she didn't like what she found? What if everything she found pointed to... madness?
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Note: This is my first Psychonauts fanfiction. It's the only game I have ever learned to play on my brother's Xbox and I love it. I know this story is a little slow getting started, but the ending is great, I think, so please read and review.)

**-Chapter One-**

It had rained the previous night, and as Milla struggled through the boggy ground in her high-heeled shoes, she wondered why camps always had to be out in the wilderness, as opposed to, say, on a swanky street-corner disco.

Camp Whispering Rock was located where it was, in the middle of the woods, for a good reason. There were unique resources there, resources that were needed for people to develop and grow stronger. But still, sometimes Milla wondered. Why couldn't they just transport the stupid minerals—

Her two-inch stiletto heel abruptly sank into a soft spot. With a growl, Milla grabbed her boot and struggled to pull her foot from the ground. It came out with a sickly squelching noise. She winced and, on second thought, raised herself above the ground to avid further mud on her boots. Why she hadn't thought of levitating before was beyond her—although, she supposed it had something to do with wanting to be sincere. Sasha would be less likely to ignore her if he'd seen she made the effort of walking across the grounds.

Sasha had his own cabin—they all did—but that wasn't where Milla was going. Sasha was rarely, if ever, in his quarters. He spent most of his time deep underground, in a lab built beneath an abandoned structure in the middle of the woods. Even now, when he was sick, he flatly refused to leave it. He treated his equipment like his children, and people like parasites. It was an unfortunate personality trait that sometimes made him difficult to approach.

Milla and Sasha had been partners for some time. First officially, paired together by the government. Her creativity paired with his logic made for a great team. And then, unofficially, as workers in the same training program. Milla was in it for the kids; Sasha was in it for the… well, actually, Milla wasn't sure why. Perhaps he liked the kids too, even though he rarely spoke more than two words to them at a time.

Milla glided over the ground, only a few inches. She passed the cabins and the main lodge, in a clearing on top of a hill. Still floating, she followed the muddy path towards the woods. The creek had swelled and even the plank bridges were overflowing. She swept over them, leaving the excited and curious stares of the campers behind her. The trees thickened when she came to Sasha's lab. It was tucked away, much like Sasha himself, surrounded by a massive fence decorated with "KEEP OUT" signs. Within the compound were no trees, just the rusty, crumbling isolation chambers. Milla let herself down on the metal catwalk and carefully began picking her way over the rickety thing, ducking her head to get into one of the dark, padded chambers. She opened the hatch, lowered herself, and closed it above her head.

Then she dusted herself off and looked around.

Below her was a long staircase of overlapping rectangles, slightly irregular and the only sign of color in the room. Other than that, the high walls were bare and white, just as the ground was. Boxes were clustered neatly into groups. Below her, Sasha was fiddling with the knobs on an old console. He gave no notice of her, despite the sudden flamboyancy of her polyester suit in his immaculately sterile labs.

She walked down the stairs, footsteps echoing. She waited until she was halfway down to say anything.

"Sasha, baby doll, have you been down here all night?"

Sasha mumbled incoherently. "Perhaps. There are endless tasks for me to do here. And now _this_ is acting up. It's not like I could just… leave it."

He rose to greet her, picking up a small, old-fashioned EEG machine from the table in front of him and swinging it onto his hip like an infant. He walked over to meet Milla at the bottom of the stairs; immediately, his head tilted, almost unnoticeably, to the muddy heel of Milla's boot and the stain it left on his white tiles.

"What's that?" asked Milla quickly, pointing to the EEG for a distraction, even though she knew what it was.

"This? An electroencephalography machine," said Sasha proudly, adjusting it against his body. "Very simple. It detects brain activity. But it'll do more than that when I'm through with it." He patted it, then, as if coming out of a reverie, asked, "I'm sorry. I've been a bad host. Would you like some tea?"

"Well, I—" began Milla.

Sasha sneezed twice, violently.

"—am just fine, thank you," she finished.

Sasha gestured her to sit. He twitched two fingers; two chairs slid over the ground toward them. They both sat, Sasha with his EEG machine on his lap. He looked down at it fondly. "It has a lot of potential," he said. "But patience is the key."

Milla said nothing to this, partially because she was not sure Sasha wanted her to, and partially because she was looking him over. They were very close in age, but while she had always remained young, he'd always acted older. Whenever they stood side by side, people guessed him to be at least five years older. And it was no wonder, the way he took care of himself. Milla loved bright colors. She loved dancing and hugging and murmuring sweet nothings. She had her earned herself the reputation of the Mental Minx, aided by her suave Brazilian accent and her terms of endearments used for complete strangers. Sasha, on the other hand, was a black-and-white soul. He didn't get excited or shaken. He rarely even smiled. He liked to talk about serious things, and liked to work, and liked to plan. In contrast with Milla's love of flashy dresses and high boots, he rarely wore anything that didn't match with generous amounts of black, which made his pale skin stand out all the more. Today, it was black pants, black leather jacket, black gloves, and black shoes. He was wearing a turtleneck, but it was a dull beige color. All the sweaters he owned came in colors like that, colors that Milla didn't even consider colors. Sasha had once explained to her that, since his eyes were brown, he needed to have some in his wardrobe. But since he almost never took off his square sunglasses, the point was moot.

"Sweetheart, you're going to get sicker," purred Milla.

Sasha didn't even cross his legs the other way, one of the few signs his feathers were being ruffled. He toyed with his EEG machine, giving himself time before answering, "It's only a cold."

"Sure, only a cold now," said Milla. "But down in this lab without any fresh air you're going to get pneumonia, darling, so come upstairs and get breakfast."

"I will as soon as I finish," said Sasha. Milla had been counting on that.

"Then I'll help you finish and we can get done faster," she said, rising. She put her hands together and rubbed them, looking around enthusiastically. "Where do you need me?"

Sasha rose slower, cradling his machine. "I can do it myself, thank you, Agent Vodello."

"Agent Vodello? No, no, no, Sasha, sweetheart, I'm just Milla to you. Come on, I can help, I can get my nails dirty for once." She pulled off her white gloves. Her nails were painted pink under them. Sasha's eyebrows knitted.

"Very well. You… can hold this," he said, delicately putting the machine in her arms.

"Okay, great!" She followed him back to the console. He sat and, propping one elbow on the console and tangling his fingers into his dark hair, began to slowly turn knobs again.

"What are we doing?" asked Milla over his shoulder.

"_I _am trying to fix a minor melt-down." Irritably, Sasha jabbed a thumb at a large device behind him.

"What's that, a laser?" asked Milla, looking up the barrel of it.

"Don't hold that EEG in front of it!"

"Right, we don't want it to get fried," said Milla. Sasha missed her sarcasm; he took it back, set it on his lap, and swiveled back to his controls. Milla peeked over his shoulder again, putting her hands on his arm. Immediately, his muscles tensed, but other than that, he gave no indication she was there. He paused to cough quietly.

"I'll make you chicken soup."

"I hate chicken soup."

"I'll get you some herbal tea."

"I can get my own."

"You should be in bed."

"And _you_ should be teaching a class, Agent—"

"_Mee_-yah," she interrupted softly, squeezing his arm.

"Milla," he mumbled apologetically.

"My class is over," said Milla. "Do you know what time it is, huh? It's ten in the morning, Sasha. You haven't even had breakfast, have you?"

He opened his mouth but only managed to sneeze. He grabbed the EEG before it slid off his lap.

"I'm not hungry. Not physically. Now, _mentally_—"

"Put a sock in it, Sasha."

"What?" snapped Sasha, who'd never before been told to put a sock in it.

"Please come upstairs, sweetie? For me?" wheedled Milla. She let her hand slid down Sasha's arm. He gave no indication that she was having any affect on him. But then, maybe it was only because his muscles were already clenched to their maximum.

He finally moved, put only to pull a cigarette from his pocket. He held it floating in the air in front of him while he searched his pockets for a light; when he couldn't find one, he lit it on fire himself.

"Have you seen even one of the kids today?"

"It was one of the kids that destroyed my Brain Tumbler," he growled. "Hours of work, wasted on an undeveloped mind. Advanced, yes, but not _developed_. The key is having the self-motivation to pursue—"

"Sasha, let's go to dinner tonight," interrupted Milla.

"Dinner?" Sasha reached up to push back the square bangs that fell over his forehead. "I have far too much work to go to dinner. We can go to dinner later."

Milla had had enough. He was doing it again, tactfully refusing her. And no one—but no one—refused Milla Vodello.

Her eyes squinted; imperceptivity, her fingers curled. There was a flash of jumbled thought in her mind—_yes_—and then it was gone. Sasha glared at her.

"How dare you try to break into my mind and read my thoughts!"

"Maybe if you just told me what you think…"

"I expect you to respect my privacy!"

"We'll meet in the parking lot at seven, okay?"

"I said no!"

"You thought yes. And don't you always say brain over brawn, darling?"

Sasha rose, snapping at her to leave. And she did. But she knew he'd come. Sasha wasn't the type of person to deny his own thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

**-Chapter Two-**

Milla allotted herself two hours to get ready. Two hours turned out to be not nearly enough. At five till seven, she was still brushing on another layer of eyeliner and checking her hair for imperfections. Plastic bangles? A must! Hoop earrings? But of course! Belt… belt… belt! Certainly!

She left still putting bangles on her wrists. She didn't want to overdo it, but she had changed, at least. Hoping to appeal to Sasha's sense of order, she'd picked out a dress in squares. Okay, so it wasn't exactly orderly… the squares were uneven and colored randomly, in the mondrian style. Well, she'd _tried_. It wasn't her fault she didn't have anything boring in her wardrobe.

She was late by ten minutes. She hurried into the parking lot where Sasha was already waiting, arms crossed, a pair of keys dangling from his hand. He was standing next to a black car—a government car. Of course. Milla hadn't even thought about how they'd get to dinner. Leave it to Sasha to call in a car and plan the evening.

She was pleased to see he'd dressed up for her. He was wearing a dark green turtleneck. Probably the most colorful thing in his wardrobe.

"I'm glad you came," she greeted him with a kiss on the cheek. "We'll have a great time, Sasha, I know it."

"Hmm," said Sasha non-committally, casually unlocking the car over his shoulder. Milla didn't bring up her attempt to infiltrate his brain, and neither did he. She was genuinely sorry and wanted to say so, but knew that once Sasha started he would be unable to end.

"You look really good in that," she said, nodding toward his sweater.

"Oh. Thank you," he said. She was even more pleased to see he was slightly—ever so slightly—embarrassed. Good. It was time he loosened up, anyway.

Sasha drove. Milla kept up a constant stream of chatter over the radio station she'd chosen. He had picked out a nice restaurant; he'd even made reservations. Milla was impressed.

"Isn't this nice?" she wished happily, leaning over their table. The candle between them, lit, flickered with the sudden movement.

"I've heard they have an excellent mignon," said Sasha.

"From who?"

"Whom," corrected Sasha. He busied himself with the menu. Milla followed suit.

They ordered. Sasha folded his hands neatly in front of him. Milla reached over the table and put hers over his. "Why don't we do this more often?" she asked. "This is so romantic, isn't it, darling? We've never done this before…"

"We're partners, Milla," said Sasha, looking acutely uncomfortable. "The things we do together are done on a strictly professional level."

"Do you plan to be professional our entire lives?"

"You're a very close friend," conceded Sasha.

"You're my best friend," said Milla quietly, squeezing his hands. Sasha didn't react.

"You're mine too," he said simply.

Milla decided to switch topics. He wasn't ruffled, and she'd only paint herself into a corner if she kept on. She kept her hands over his. "Are you feeling any better?"

"No," said Sasha.

"You should have ordered the chicken soup…"

"I don't _like_ chicken soup." Sasha was starting to bristle. Milla took her hands away. She wouldn't push him. She knew he'd said yes. She knew he felt the same way. How many times had they dived out of explosions, only to land in each other's arms, to look into each other's eyes for just a second, a magical adrenaline-pumped sooty second, before they remembered they were on a mission and had to get moving. She missed those times, those youthful fun days of never knowing whether they'd come out alive and on top, before Sasha wore his sunglasses and when it was much easier to forget all those haunting little corners of her brain.

Released from Milla's grip, Sasha warmed up again. He became pleasant, even a little casual, as casual as he ever got. They chatted about the old times, the missions into the minds of madmen, the occasional physical recon mission. They talked about the kids at camp and remembered fondly their own training. She told him about the latest fashions, and he told her about his hopes for his equipment. They left feeling full and content.

"Thanks for taking me out, Sasha," purred Milla, holding onto his arm as they walked down the dark street.

"You coerced me into it. But you're welcome. I had a good time."

Milla looked up. Sasha wasn't looking at her. He seemed more concerned with keeping his cigarette lit in the breeze. Old newspapers, gum wrappers, and grocery bags blew past.

"Oh, look," said Milla as several colorful pieces of foil skittered across their path.

Sasha looked down. He put out his hand; the foil stopped, along with every piece of trash in the immediate area. A twitch of his fingers, and it swirled up into a miniature tornado of trash, as tall as Sasha himself.

"Sasha, what on earth—" began Milla. She stopped; the tornado split into two, and two figures emerged, a man and a woman, silhouettes of paper. The man bowed; the woman curtsied. Then all their manners were abandoned; the man grabbed her waist and tossed her into the air; they swung around; the man dipped the woman to the floor. For a moment the two silent figures hung in air, the woman's body in a graceful arc, bending toward the ground, supported by the man. Then, a breeze came, and both blew apart.

Milla looked in surprise at Sasha. He'd lowered his hand, and was taking a drag on his cigarette.

"That was beautiful," said Milla.

"It was made of trash," replied Sasha with another long drag on his cigarette. He lowered his hand; the cigarette remained over his shoulder

"Sasha, why aren't we—"

"This job entails a certain amount of professionalism," said Sasha, not allowing her to finish the question. "Our partnership has been successful. But if it ever came down to… a choice…"

"I'd choose you," said Milla softly.

Sasha reached up and pulled down his glasses, glaring her over the top of the rims. "Then you see how it's already posing a threat to your performance."

"A threat to my performance?" repeated Milla, angry. She jerked away from Sasha, crossed her arms and glared at him. "Sasha, we teach _children_."

"We teach children because we're the best!" snapped Sasha back. "We have the skills and the experience. And even if there's no current threat, that doesn't mean one might not pose itself. In which case it is our responsibility to assume our old duties in _addition _to protecting the children. We cannot allow our feelings to get in the way of those loyalties."

"Well you know what I think?" hissed Milla, her speech becoming more and more rapid as she became more and more angry. "I think you're just scared to be in a relationship and too uptight to admit it."

Sasha's face went completely blank. Milla cursed herself. Sasha had closed up and she'd lost control by yelling at him. And now he'd never listen.

"Come on," sighed Milla quietly. "It's getting cold. You'll get sicker."

She took his arm and the two turned back. Slowly, by degrees, they began to speak again, small little nothings. They talked about the dinner and about their plans back at the camp. They reminisced. Neither brought up the two dancing paper silhouettes.


	3. Chapter 3

**-Chapter Three-**

Milla knew an apology was in order. Sasha got on her nerves, it was true. She probably got on his too, but unlike Sasha, Milla liked to express herself and then move on. She hated leaving open-ended grudges. She needed a nice little wrap-up to their fight. But she was unsure how he'd take it. Sasha preferred to lock things up, hold grudges, and become agitated about minor flaws. The way he expressed agitation came out in what Milla considered very strange ways.

"Are you working again?" asked Milla as she stepped down the stairs to Sasha's lab.

"A little," came Sasha's muffled voice from beneath a rather sinister-looking instrument. All Milla could see were his legs. He had thrown on overalls over his black, creased pants and shined shoes, presumably to keep them from dirtying. The thought of Sasha in overalls over all his black leather nearly made Milla choke.

"I brought you some soup. And don't say you don't like it, 'cos you need it, darling."

"I do not," came Sasha's muffled voice again. He rolled out from under the table partially. A hand appeared; he held it up. A wrench from the other side of the room flew into it. He retreated back under his machine.

"You do," insisted Milla. She shifted the tray she was carrying into one hand and used the other to make a pulling motion in the air. Sasha began to be dragged out from under his hideaway. He grabbed onto something on the inside, refusing to be pulled out.

"Milla, I'm at a very delicate stage! Please!"

Milla set the tray on a nearby table, after pushing several books off it. As she'd hoped, the sound of disorganization brought Sasha running. He gathered up the strewn papers, stacking them onto the floor neaty next to several other stacks.

"Try some."

Sasha glowered at her. But the effect was lost completely; his hands were black with oil, his face was smudged with dirt, and his glasses were slightly crooked. Milla snorted with contained laughter. Sasha hurriedly fixed his glasses and began kicking off his overalls.

"I wish you would have _informed_ me instead of just barging in…"

Milla was laughing too hard to reply. "I—I'm sorry, darling," she stuttered between giggles. "But—you're just—so funny!"

Sasha glowered even more. He sat in a chair, a Saarinen design, remarkable only for its ability to appear simultaneously comfortable and extremely not. Possibly, considered Milla, it was the way Sasha sat in it.

She remembered herself and sat soberly across from Sasha, balancing the tray of soup on her lap.

"So. What are we working on?"

Sasha cast a fond glance over his shoulder. "Just a little experiment. It's a Brain Tumbler. Something which, I hope, will make it easier to enter the mind. To go into not just one unconscious mind, but several. Even your own. Call it a… collective unconscious." He frowned. "Of course, it was cheap… very cheap… and seems to occasionally break and scramble up the minds inside it…" He paused to cough.

Milla must have looked horrified, because Sasha quickly leaned forward to reassure her. "Oh, no, it's safe. It only acts as a middle ground between minds. And they're all closed off while I work on it."

"And you're letting _students_ use it?"

"I let _one_ student into my mind. _One_. I was there with him. It was a safe environment!"

"You let a student into your _brain_?" repeated Milla. "Through that… that thing?"

"Well, yes," said Sasha, coughing again into his sleeve. "But I was sure it was perfectly safe. And it's only my brain that's currently accessible. I won't begin opening multiple minds until I'm sure it's entirely fool-proof."

While Sasha was overcome with a fit of coughing, Milla contemplated what he'd just told her. She and Sasha, as agents of the psychic world, had never entered more than one mind at a time. Mixing minds was never a safe thing to do. But in some cases, multiple minds really did need access to each other. In classes, for example. Dragging a horde of young psychics into her brain to teach them was an experience that left Milla feeling wrung-out some days. If Sasha could really just hook all the brains together… why, the communication possibilities alone would be phenomenal. Because, after all their years of being together, Milla and Sasha had never entered each other's brains. And here they were, sitting only a few feet away and completely unable to talk about anything but Sasha's little experiments. Milla watched him sniveling with a sense of heartfelt longing.

She offered him the tray. He waved it away.

"I don't have much of an appetite," he mumbled, reaching into his pocket for a cigarette.

"You can't live off those. Just try a little. I made it for you," pleaded Milla.

Sasha heaved a sigh of defeat before taking the tray from her. "I don't like chicken soup," he mumbled half-heartedly. "Not at all."

"Just eat it," urged Milla. "Sometimes, you act like a little boy, Sasha, disobeying his mother." She laughed, but Sasha's face twisted. She stopped quickly. "Sasha? Are you okay?"

"Fine," said Sasha quietly. "I—I just don't feel well. You're probably correct… about… over-work…" He trailed off and began absent-mindedly eating. Milla studied him.

"Are you sure?"

Sasha nodded, swirling his soup. He wasn't even looking at it; his gaze was centered somewhere high up on the wall. He was obviously somewhere far away. Milla decided perhaps she shouldn't push. She got up, patted Sasha's leg, and began walking back up the stairs. Near the top, she glanced back down. Sasha was still sitting and staring off thoughtfully, a full spoonful of soup held limply in his hand.


	4. Chapter 4

**-Chapter Four-**

It wasn't until later she realized she'd forgotten her apology altogether. She'd been so startled by Sasha's reaction to… to what? She hadn't even said anything in particular. She'd only been chastising him about the soup, which she'd done several times before. And he had reacted like she'd never seen him react. How utterly strange. How utterly… intriguing.

She didn't want to go back right away and push him. But she also wanted, so badly, to try to find out what had bothered him. He'd always acted so annoyingly closed to her. He knew everything about her. He knew every memory and hope and concern and… everything. And she knew nothing. If only she could get inside his brain, just for a moment, to find out why—

Milla was levitating a glass of water in front of her when the thought came. It was so simple. So unbelievably simple and perfect.

The glass dropped and shattered. The students who had been gathered around her, watching, shrieked and jumped back. Milla remembered what she was doing.

"And that is why you must remain focused," she called. "The rate of gravity is almost ten feet per second. That means things fall fast when you break your concentration. Levitation is not something you can stop. You have to _gradually_ begin..." She let the pieces of the glass rise. For a moment they swirled, they placed themselves back together. "…and _gradually_ come out of." Gently, she set the glass down. The students clapped. She dismissed them and they scattered, probably to practice levitating in their cabins, even though she'd already expressedly told them not to until at least one more lesson.

Dismayed, she nudged the glass with her foot. It fell apart. She could put it together with her mind, but once it was shattered, she couldn't get the pieces to stay unless she continued to force them together. The students wouldn't realize she hadn't fixed the glass until much later.

She dumped the pieces in a nearby trash can and began strolling towards Sasha's lab. It was almost dinner time; she passed the lodge on her way to the woods. It was brightly lit against the twilight sky, and she could hear students laughing and chattering in additions to the clanking of their silverware. A loud crash informed her that Sasha had been doing his job; he was in charge of teaching the students the more violent aspects of the psychic arts, shooting things with mental energy and controlling their negative feelings into something useful. The shrieking laughter of students and smashing of things in the lodge followed Milla into the woods. She sighed. She loved children, but being around them always plucked at her heartstrings. Sometimes she preferred the tranquility of the forest to their exuberant shrieks.

As she made her way over the uneven ground, she tried to think of what she'd say to Sasha. Flattery was probably the best way to go. She'd express an interest and beg him to show her, and maybe he'd let her into his brain. Then again, Sasha was fairly good at detecting insincerity. And he'd never show her anything if he thought she was prying. But she wasn't _really_ prying. They were partners, weren't they? She deserved to know what was going on in Sasha's head, especially if it was coming out and toying around with their relationship.

Compared with the campground, Sasha's lab was eerily quiet. In fact, too quiet. As she descended the stairs, Milla realized the only noise was her heels tapping on the floor. There was no clanking or whirling or clattering.

Puzzled, she paused to look around when she'd reached the bottom of the stairs. She spotted Sasha; he had fallen asleep in his chair, head in his arms. A cigarette was lying on the floor next to him, still smoking. Milla hurried down to grind it out.

Poor Sasha, she thought. He'd finally done what she'd warned against for years, working himself into a state of unconsciousness. She reached out and stroked his hair, and gently pulled off his glasses, setting them beside him. He didn't stir; he continued napping peacefully. She couldn't wake him. He needed the sleep, that much was obviously. There were dark circles on his pallid face, circles normally hid beneath his sunglasses. Milla would just have to wait.

It did seem a pity, though, that she'd come all the way down here only to find Sasha asleep. Absent-mindedly, she began walking around the lab, trailing her hand over the panels. She thought about levitating Sasha to bed, but decided he'd only be offended if she treated him like a child. Let him sleep in his chair.

She paused. Here was a console with only a few knobs on it, and only a few buttons. She glanced anxiously behind her. There was Sasha's large, laser-like instrument, the Brain Tumbler, his so-called in-between, the Collective Unconscious. One manicured nail was already circling a red button. Sasha was asleep, sound asleep, practically in a state of living death. He'd never know if she peeked into his brain for, say, five minutes, would he? She could learn everything in the blink of an eye. And, being unconscious, it was would so much less restricted… unguarded…

Milla's finger pressed the button.

"Oops," she said, as a dozen lights came on. Compulsively, she turned a knob. The lights grew brighter. She wandered over to the front of the brain Tumbler, remembering with a sinking feeling Sasha's dull warning about how it sometimes scrambled up minds or failed altogether. Just as she was about to move out of the way, she felt a sensation like a knife going through the back of her head. There was a moment of searing, splitting pain, followed by an unpleasant but not painful feeling of being yanked or dragged, like a hook was in her head. Sasha's lab swum before her eyes. She couldn't feel the ground. She felt like she was falling or floating… or both.

And then, with a nauseating jolt, her feet were again on the floor.

Dizzily, she looked up, aware that her hair was completely messed up. She tried to run her fingers through it as she looked around. Was this Sasha's mind? No; there was nothing here. It was like a circular hallway, but without walls or ceilings. It was empty except for doors. Dozens of doors.

Hesitantly, Milla poked a foot out. The narrow circle of carpeting she was on didn't even have a railing. And all around her was fog. She dangled her foot over the edge, trying to determine if there was a bottom. But she couldn't see one. Abruptly, her shoe fell off. She watched it plunge into the fog, feeling sick. But only seconds later, it fell from the sky and clattered next to her.

Milla looked up. Was there direction here? She was tempted to levitate and find out. Then again, what if she went up and got lost in the fog? She could come down and miss this platform and fall forever. What about in the physical world? Would she be crazy, away from her own mind for the rest of her life? Would her consciousness be trapped here, in this dreamscape that was no one's mind?

Of course, Milla hadn't opted to become an agent because she was a coward. No, she was all about adventure. And, she reassured herself, if she did get lost, Sasha would probably come after her.

She concentrated, letting her body float up. Her feet left solid ground and she was soon high above the circular hallway and its doors. It disappeared in the fog. She continued to go up—up—up. There was no way to tell how fast she was traveling, or if she was even still moving at all. She didn't have time to worry, though; before she knew what was happening, she'd smashed her head onto something above her. She rubbed it and looked up; she was below the floor. So there _was_ no direction in this place. It was infinite, but its center was this hallway. Any direction she moved in would take her back. It was like a circle turned inside out. Moving out was in and moving up was down and… and…

Milla climbed back onto the platform and shook out her head. No; physics didn't apply here. This place was a purely mental one. And, she reminded herself, she wasn't anywhere yet. She was looking for Sasha's mind. Not this place.

She reached for the first door and tugged the doorknob. Locked. And possibly not even the right mind. But she'd know Sasha's mind when she saw it. He was her partner. She knew she'd find it.

She gave it another tug, then pushed experimentally. The door swung open; she stepped through before she realized it didn't lead anywhere. She fell through the fog and landed with a heavy jolt onto the ground again, the open door in front of her. So much for that.

She began walking around the corridor, examining each door. Some were plain. Some had notes scrawled on them in Sasha's handwriting. She made the mistake of touching his scrawling words; the words peeled off the door and floated away.

"Milla, sweetheart, you shouldn't touch anything," Milla advised herself. She didn't understand this place. She didn't want to accidentally destroy something.

She stopped in front of a purple door. Ah-ha! This was Sasha's mind, if ever she'd seen it. For one thing, it was obviously the most active. There were boxes and books stacked in front of it (though all the books were empty, and the boxes were apparently made of mist, since when she tried to touch them, they disappeared), and notes and equations were scribbled all over the wood. Sasha had clearly been spending a lot of time with his experiment, using himself as a guinea pig.

She reached out, trying to ignore her own misgivings about breaking into Sasha's mind, and opened the door. No mist this time; a blinding light came out instead. _This_ door went somewhere. This was no in-between dreamscape; this was a fully functional brain. The loud buzzing coming out of it was evidence of that.

Milla took a deep breath. Did she really want to break into Sasha's mind while he slept and while his defenses were down? She'd come this far. What if he woke up and found her? What if there was something wrong with his machine and she accident all broke both their minds? Come to think of it, how did she even get out of his mind once she was inside?

"I didn't become a secret agent because I'm a coward," Milla reminded herself. And with that, she stepped through the door and into Sasha's consciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

**-Chapter Five-**

Expecting to feel the same unpleasantness as before, Milla was surprised when, after a moment of unsteady, shaking flight, she fell onto a solid surface.

She stood up, brushing herself off, and looked around. Immediately, she wondered if she'd come into his mind, or if she was still in the Collective Unconscious. This didn't look like any mind she'd ever seen at all.

Milla had broken into minds before. Most were complicated, twisted places. Or maybe that was just because most of the minds she'd been in were deeply disturbed. But this mind was so… well… it was empty.

She was standing on a flat plane that stretched seemingly forever. It was completely smooth, white with black and gray designs over it. There was no color. Above her was a stormy, opaque nothingness. Occasionally she thought she saw something drifting by, but the level of activity here was… well… there was no activity at all. No color. She'd never been in a mind without anything in it. Every mind had memories or thoughts or something.

She began walking, expecting at any moment to come upon something. But as she walked, the only thing she saw were new designs on the plane below her feet. It worried her. Minds were complex things. When she had been an active agent, breaking into the minds of madmen, she had come to know that all minds had a sort of bizarre organization, a maze of memories and thoughts and strange figures. While complicated, most had a sort of themed metropolitan inside them. This mind, aside from having no personality whatsoever, also wasn't organized. It was empty. There were no walls separating anything, not that there was anything to separate. Milla could feel panic rising as she walked. This couldn't be Sasha's mind. His mind would be packed full. She must have fallen into some weird part of his experiment. So the logical thing to do would be to float back up to the place with all the doors and try again.

She tried to levitate. At first it went as it always did. But then she began slowing down. And after a while she stopped, far below the stormy opaquity, but high above a vast landscape of white. No matter how hard she focused, she could not rise higher. The environment she was in refused to let her.

Panic gripped her harder. So she _was_ in a mind. If she hadn't been surrounded by another person's consciousness, then her own powers shouldn't have limits, since they were derived from her own consciousness. This was a bad idea. She never should have come to this psyche.

Looking down, however, she felt slightly comforted. There was definitely_ some_ organization in the patterns. On the flat, white landscape were black designs. Squares, circles, fractals. Together, they made intricate pathways in white. Perhaps there _was_ some sort of organization that Milla simply didn't understand. After all, Sasha thought much differently from her. And most minds she'd seen were insane. She was in a logical mind—and a psychic one. Of course it would be different.

She let herself float back down. As she did, she felt again comforted by a sound that indicated she was in a functioning mind after all—the loud, grating shrieks of "No! No! No!"

Milla threw a mental cloak over herself just in time. A small mental being hurried toward her, still proclaiming "No! No!" It was something all minds had—what the psychics called censors. They patrolled the mind in an attempt to stomp out anything that didn't belong. Hallucinations, mental illnesses. Or, in this case, Milla, who shouldn't have been in Sasha's mind. She was a foreign body. Naturally, Sasha's mind wouldn't allow her to be there.

Confused, the censor looked around. Milla continued to project a mental cloak over herself. The censor, unable to see her, eventually began to wander off. Milla hesitated, then followed it. Perhaps if she could find where it was coming from, she'd find something other than this vast emptiness.

It led her to a ledge. It didn't even hesitate. It walked right off the sheer, ninety-degree cliff. Milla hurried after it and looked down. It was walking horizontally downwards.

Confused, she put out her foot. The world suddenly wrenched around. She nearly puked. She was right-side up again, but sideways. She jumped over the cliff. The world turned with her. She jumped back. No matter where she stood, she was on the ground. She followed the cliff's edge; it came to a point eventually. She stepped over one cliff, then the other, then stood directly on the point of the three planes. She couldn't fall off.

She nearly laughed once she figured it out. It was a cube. A cube which, apparently, functioned as the exact center of Sasha's brain, much in the way the Collective Consciousness had had a definite center.

But this was a mind. It shouldn't have had a center, beginning, or end. And a cube was so limiting. And it was empty. Shouldn't the surface of this cube be crowded with memories or thoughts? So far, all she'd seen was a single censor, who she'd lost in trying to figure out the cliffs.

Remembering the censor, Milla turned back, away from the cliffs. She didn't like the idea of a cube with no up or down anyway. Having the world right itself was disconcerting, to say the least.

As she walked, suddenly the storm over her head changed. For a moment it turned light gray, and she saw flashes of images; a cabin, a chair, a waterfall that appeared to be made of a thick, oozing material; then it darkened again. Ah-ha. So Sasha was dreaming. Good…

Milla found the censor (or maybe it was another one) wandering dutifully across the empty white mindscape. She followed; he looked like he was going to the center of this side of the cube. And sure enough, Milla finally saw something; something she thought was perhaps marking the middle of this plane. It was nothing spectacular. It looked like some sort of weird pipe. It was rusted and rickety and not something Milla would have expected in Sasha's mind. The censor squeezed into it and disappeared.

Milla crept up to it. Was this pipe it? The only thing in Sasha's mind? Over her head, the clouds flashed an abrupt picture of a lounge chair with a row of encyclopedias lying on it; it was replaced with a one-eyed raccoon lying in the road.

Milla crouched next to the piping and tried to determine where it came from. Inside the cube. Did it go anywhere? In theory, she could fit into the tube; after all, there was technically no such thing as size here in the mind.

But instead she saw something even better. The pipe went into the plane. And in the tiny space between the floor and the pipe, Milla could see something.

Before she had a chance to stop herself, she grabbed the crack between the pipe and the floor and pulled. The floor broke away easily. And inside was a cache of boxes.

Milla laughed. "Sasha, you devil!" she said to herself. Sasha's mind wasn't empty; on the contrary, it was perfectly organized. Everything was stored within the cube. She hadn't seen anything because it was beneath her feet the whole time.

She began widening the hole in the floor. She wasn't worried. The mind was so infinitely vast that tearing down a few walls wouldn't hurt it. In fact, they fell down regularly, but the mind always fixed them. Opening a few hundred boxes wouldn't kill Sasha; he probably wouldn't even be aware of it.

Milla crouched by the hole and reached in. She picked up the box closest to the tube, which extended downward into the tightly packed boxes.

Milla examined it. It looked like a shoebox, but could hold anything. Printed on the side in neat letter, it said: "NEIN." That made Milla laugh. Only Sasha would be so petty, to label the contents of his own brain.

She peeked into the box, then, tearing off the top, turned it over. Incredulously, she stared at its contents. Shoes. That was it. The shoebox had a pair of black shoes in it.

She reached in and picked up another box. Identical. Same size, same shape, same "NEIN" label.

She turned it over. More shoes.

A third box. Shoes.

Milla sat back on her heels, concerned. Did this mean something? Sasha had never seemed to care very much about shoes. Why would his brain be packed with shoeboxes?

Milla began pulling out more and more boxes. The hole in the floor grew as she pried up more and pulled out more. She lowered herself into it, checking boxes and tossing them out. Shoes. More shoes. Neatly wrapped, shined, never worn before. Black. White. Gray. More black. Shoes, shoes, shoes.

With increasing horror, Milla dug deeper down. Here: a box without any shoes in it, only the thin paper used to wrap them. Here: a mismatched pair. Here: only one shoe. Here: a box incorrectly stamped "NIEN." Here: a pair with the laces done incorrectly, tangled and random. Was it just her, or was the hole getting larger?

She pulled herself out of it and looked down. Yes, it _was_ larger. And was it just her, or were the shoes below getting bigger? No, it wasn't her imagination. It did get bigger. The perception was opposite. Farther in, it got bigger and bigger.

Milla stumbled back from the pile of shoes, terrified. If the cube got larger and larger the farther down, then there was no limit to it. Inside was an infinite eternity of shoes. But there was no center. The outside was the center and, with each row down, the inside expanded. It was like peeling an onion but having it grow bigger with each layer peeled off. And only a few rows down, the shoes stopped being so neatly put away. They grew mismatched and scuffed and confused. Milla felt sick. This wasn't the mind of a sane person. This didn't make sense. There were no thoughts or emotions. Just shoes.

_Shoes._ Of all things, why shoes? Just shoes.

While Milla crouched on the ground, trying to level her breathing, abruptly a dozen small censors came out of the tube. Milla immediately projected a mental cloak around her to hide. The censors scattered. A few stayed behind, observing the pile of shoes. After a moment they began repacking. She watched as the shoes disappeared into boxes and back into the hole. The pile grew smaller. Soon everything was neatly packed away, and the censors were already putting the floor of the cube back over it. Above her head were a few more flashes. A weeping willow with a man kneeling over it; a string of Mardi Gras beads; a dinner with her and some other psychonauts.

Milla stood and ran. She wanted out. But there were no doors. She had to leave. She'd seen enough. Sasha was crazy. Completely crazy. His brain didn't make sense. She was through with his consciousness. He was crazier than the craziest madman she'd ever seen.

She stomped on the floor. It opened a hole, but there was no exit. Only more "NEIN" boxes.

Almost crying, she kept running. She went over the cliff; the cube turned with her and she kept running. She passed another piece of piping and two censors standing by. She went over another cliff. She was trapped. Trapped! Trapped in an insane mind. What if Sasha woke up? Would she still be here? Would he realize she was here? Would her physical self be mindless for the rest of her life?

She nearly ran past the next pipe she saw, but didn't. Because this one was different. Beside it was a door. And a stack of boxes.

"Oh, thank you!" whispered Milla. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

She hurried toward it. Yes, this was the same door. It was purple, scribbled with notes. The boxes next to it were all labeled. NEIN. NEIN. NEIN.

She nudged them with her foot. They fell over. One opened, spilling its contents: shoes.

With a cry of horror, Milla yanked at the door. She stumbled into it and slammed it behind her.

No wonder Sasha never expressed any feelings. He didn't _have _any. His brain was filled with _shoes_. His brain was an inside-out cube filled with shoes. No wonder he was psychic. He was also insane. His brain wasn't normal. No wonder it had the power to blow things up. It didn't do anything else, except think of shoes.

Half-sobbing, Milla hurried around the circle, inspecting the doors for the one that would lead her out. Most were unopened, some locked, some labeled. Finally, she found it. A door labeled "LAB." She practically jumped into it. She felt exactly what she'd felt before: stabbing pain in her head, tugging and yanking, nausea.

And suddenly, with a heavy impact, she was lying on the floor of Sasha's lab. She was back in the physical world, back in her own safe mind. She stood up, feeling weak and unsteady. She stumbled over to the console and turned the knobs back. The equipment turned off, its hum disappearing. The lab was silent once more, except for the steady sound of Sasha's breathing. He was still asleep, his peaceful exterior betraying his madness.

-Fin-

(Author's Note: I know the ending is really, really open to interpretation and I don't want to give it away, but I hope you understand that Sasha's not really crazy; Milla just didn't understand what she was seeing. If you got this far, kudos to you! Now go review and I'll love you forever!)


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